Is Privacy a Joke?
With the latest Facebook scandal, we came to know that our private data is not secure. Even with all the claims these companies make of ensuring our security, they have failed us time and again. Some or the other issue pops up every now and then. And this leads us to the glaring question: IS OUR PRIVACY A JOKE?
‘What’, ‘How’ and ‘Why’
Every single day while we are online, we are bombarded with multiple advertisements that are directly targeted towards us. We also have to accept all the terms and conditions to continue using key features of most services and applications. What’s hidden in the fine print of these terms and conditions, is the ‘secret ingredient’ for targeted ads and services.
No matter what we do later, when we are agreeing to these terms and conditions, we are giving these apps and websites our consent to share our data with multiple third-party platforms (remember Facebook’s scandals?). You don’t own your Facebook profile or even your Facebook photos, Google scans your emails, your phone knows where you are even if your location services are turned off, Amazon knows what you like to buy and how much you can spend, etc., and the list goes on and on!
There are many instances where your personal data is used without your consent, and even without your knowledge. Your data is a huge, lucrative business resource, because using them, advertisers can directly target their communication to you.
Similarly, if you are staying in a ‘smart home’ which is IoT-enabled, each and every device collects and stores tremendous amounts of information which can be linked to your day-to-day lives. It can tell when you are home and when you are not, what is your daily schedule, what you like to eat, what you listen to, what you watch, etc. This completely overrides our privacy and it downright scary! Use of many face recognition apps have also amped up this fear because most of your private identity data is now recorded by your devices’ camera 24x7.
There are many apps which ask permissions to access and edit your SMS data, Call Logs, Location, Gallery, etc. to target advertisements better. They can scan through your messages and your account details to get an idea about your monthly income and spending limit and target products to you accordingly. They can even send messages on our behalf!
Websites use cookies which store our personal information. We basically leave a trail of breadcrumbs detailing our online habits. These websites also use dark patterns to mislead us into believing that we are making a mistake by not accepting their terms and conditions. They make us believe that if we don’t accept them, we’ll miss out on the experiences and services of those websites, capitalising on the perpetual FOMO of internet natives. E.g., websites asking us to accept or deny their terms and conditions with options like these: ‘Yes, I want a kickass experience!’ and ‘No, I am living the basic life.’; instead of asking a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Let’s take the case of China. The Chinese government has total control over people’s privacy and complete access to all their information. The government even reads their texts and people regularly suffer the legal consequences of private conversations. Top companies like Facebook, Google, etc. are banned in China, and they use their own version of these services like WeChat, Sina Weibo, Tencent, Baidu Tieba, etc. giving the government even more control over people’s privacy. If people try to stand up against the government, they can be held hostage, get their accounts deleted, thrown out of jobs, and even gravely threatened. Where would you even seek redressal when your own government is doing that to you?!
China is also taking surveillance technology to new heights by making a social credit scorecard to keep tabs on people. They are planning to create a facial recognition system which will help in identifying people in under 3 seconds, with a 90% accuracy rate. Various cities have already started using facial recognition to name and shame minor offenders, spot criminals among thousands-strong crowds and verify the identities of passengers at airports. They are using robotic doves, video surveillance, facial recognition, border control, messaging platforms, Social Credit System, mobile apps, etc. to know absolutely everything that their people are doing.
This has been happening to a point that it is absurd. For example, limiting the dispensation of toilet paper after recognising people’s faces; using surveillance for determining if they are paying attention in class; etc.
As long as we are sending out such huge amounts of information without understanding the grave consequences, we are enabling big corporations to spy on us. While it may be convenient to ‘just let it go’, like a majority of the Chinese population has been forced to do, the thing that is at stake here is our undeniable right to privacy!
